


It Feels Real Good

by mattzerella_sticks



Series: Season 15 Inspired [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Burgers - Freeform, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Dorks, Castiel is Claire Novak's Parent, Claire Novak's mental health, Coda, Episode: s15e12 Galaxy Brain, F/F, Family Feels, Geico Gecko, Hunter Claire Novak, Kaia Nieves Lives, Lesbian Claire Novak, M/M, Parental Jody Mills, Reunions, Sassy Claire Novak, Scheming, Secrets, Soft Claire Novak, Soft Kaia Nieves, Teenagers, The Bad Place, Wayward Sisters, everyone deserves happiness, lampshading, mentions car accidents, netflix, one day at a time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23275075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattzerella_sticks/pseuds/mattzerella_sticks
Summary: Jody sent her to Yosemite, and she brings her back. For what reason, Claire doesn't know. But it had better be important, otherwise Claire gave the Dark Figure that stole her happiness another chance at escape. Will Jody's house hold a reason important enough for Claire to let go of the heavy burdens she's been carrying since hopping through a rift into another universe?Coda to 15x12 "Galaxy Brain"
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Series: Season 15 Inspired [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517543
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	It Feels Real Good

**Author's Note:**

> Basically wanted to include Claire in this episode because KATHRYN SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THIS DAMN EPISODE
> 
> (Also Dean and Cas are totally a couple, TBTB just won't show what we as fans know)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

A soft ballad sneaks its way onto Claire’s stereo, a guitar strum slowly – _irritatingly_ – plucking over the sound system alongside a familiar melody. The cheese factor triples with every second, and by the time Claire digs out of her entrenched focus the cabin smells like rotten swiss. “ _Gross_.” She jabs at the console, hopping between radio stations until she finds one that matches the dark clouds circling her mind. Lyrics hidden under thrashing power chords and guttural notes. “This is better… _marginally_.”

Claire would prefer to drive in silence. But if she did, it would allow for thoughts to take root and _fester_. Music – no matter how awful – deters any intrusion from sticking around.

And she’d hate to make it all the way back to Jody’s only to crash headfirst into a tree because she couldn’t handle her own head. It’d be _embarrassing_.

“Although why I needed to get here as fast as I could,” she mumbles to herself, pulling into the driveway, “when I was… I was so close.”

She wasn’t. But leaving without turning over every stone felt a disservice to the memory of… Her hands clench tighter around the steering wheel. A trickle of blood oozes inside her mouth from where she bites down hard against her lip. Liquid copper dulls her senses. In. One… two… three… Out.

Going through the exercises helps as much as they can – like using scissors against plastic instead of your bare hands. The image of her face can’t fade away quick enough, yet with each breath the fog protecting her rolls over again. Walls go up. _Clink. Clink. Clink._

Perfect timing. Someone knocks on the door, startling Claire from her somber meditation.

Donna beams at her, ignoring the very obvious glare etched across her face. She motions for Claire to roll down her window. After testing the limits of Donna’s unstoppable sunshine, Claire finds her stubbornness isn’t as immoveable as she would hope. She concedes, huffing, “What?”

“How was your trip?”

“…Long.” Another round where they stared at each other like two gunslingers across a dusty road later and Claire staggers through wounded pride. “Are you the welcoming committee?” she asks with gritted teeth.

“Part of it,” Donna says, leaning against the roof of Claire’s car, “Jody figured seeing me first would help ease you into everything.”

“Ease me into what?” Claire scoffs, opening the door and knocking Donna off her car. “This isn’t another intervention is it? Because I didn’t even suggest this hunt – _Jody_ found it for me.” A surprise, in all honestly. Claire finished burying the scorched remains of a former vengeful spirit when the text came in. Blurry photo bathed in shadow – odd for Yosemite. She left the shovel in the dirt and sped towards the highway.

Only to spend one day in interview hell – getting nowhere – until finally reconnecting to her motel’s shitty wi-fi and finding an e-mail waiting for her.

“Nothing like that,” Donna says, shutting the door for her, “nothing like that at all.”

“Are you going to tell me, then?”

“And ruin the surprise?” she winks, chuckling, “Why?” Donna walks without Claire to the house, ponytail bouncing behind her.

Claire crosses her arms. “You know – at least firing squads give their victims fair warning before stepping onto the shooting range… and a bandana!” Aware of how slim her chance at response was, she forwent collecting her bags and instead stomped after Donna. She enters the house and sees more of her wayward little family.

Patience, eerily flipping through a magazine even though her gaze bored into Claire, and Alex flittering around with a dust-clogged Swiffer wand – ghosting over shiny surfaces. Jody wasn’t anywhere in the room, heightening her hunter’s senses. “Hey,” Claire says, spinning her silver ring, “what’s going on?”

“Claire,” Alex jumps, spins around in surprise even though she passed by her twice, “you’re back?”

“Yeah, and you’re… cleaning?”

“I mean, of course you’d be back,” Alex continues, ignoring Claire’s jab, “I was there when Jody called you but I figured what with you being out in the desert it might’ve taken a lot longer for you to drive back. Maybe another day –“

“I took a shortcut,” Claire shrugs, “speaking of Jody, where is she? Getting the surprise ready?”

“You mean you know about –“

“Alex,” Donna cuts her off, stepping between the younger girls, “I think you missed a spot by the television set.”

Alex nods, scurrying over with her back to Claire. During the awkward exchange, Claire reached for Donna’s wrist and squeezed tight. Only she hadn’t reacted unfavorably. “Christo.”

“What was that?”

“Sorry,” Claire rubbed her nose, “I think there must still be dust in the air from all of Alex’s cleaning.” The tide of her suspicion recedes to normal levels, hair on the back of her neck still on edge since there’s no proven ways to test for angels. Although Claire doubts any possessed her family. These girls would know better. However, they keep something from her – a grave mistake. “Usually she doesn’t get like this unless someone important is coming over… so -?”

“No,” Patience says, forgoing the farce of her magazine and crossing her legs, “they’re already here.”

“Singular or plural.”

“Singular.”

“Well,” Claire gestures at her, “do you want to give me a little more to go on?”

Donna nudges her towards the kitchen. “Why don’t you go see Jody? Then we’ll tell you everything we know.” Claire raises a brow, only for the other woman to shoo her off and sit across from Patience. Both share smirks at her expense. Alex’s shaky focus on her cleaning feels marginally better than their conspiring.

Understanding when the well’s been tapped dry, Claire abandons the living room for the kitchen, where Jody and the mystery guest wait. With each step she bounces around the identity of who is with her mother.

Sam and Dean are the first two who pop to mind. Except they also get tossed aside the easiest. Patience said only one person waited for her, and without the hulking black mass of their car Claire doubts either one came for a surprise visit. Both brothers had more on their plates these days. What with God screwing around and both men deciding that would be the best time to explore their love lives.

That train of thought leads her to Castiel. It’s been forever since they spoke face to face, mostly talking through texts and the occasional phone call. In their last one, he told her in fierce monotone about renting a cabin by a lake and fishing daily. Underneath his words were a current of anger directed towards a forty-year-old man who ate like he was still twenty.

But they resolved their issues, if the blurry picture saved in her gallery of Dean crying at a cowboy movie were to go by.

Her investigation moves away from Castiel soon enough after remembering the angel and Jody had never met. If Castiel were to be a surprise it would be for everyone else in the house who never met an angel. His presence wouldn’t be kept from her.

So she hops from suspect to suspect. Inches from the kitchen she imagines it being one of Jody’s deputies – the one whose patrol car she ‘borrowed’ to chase down a group of shifters and ended up wasting it to knock one off a cliff and bury him with the hunk of metal. Maurice always glared at her over the rim of his coffee mug. Claire didn’t help rebuild trust by creatively flashing her middle finger at him.

After hours crammed in a car, he would be the last person Claire wants to see. And given how aggressively the universe targets her, he is the most likely ‘surprise’. The others’ reactions fit with this conclusion. Donna softening her so she would be more amenable to playing nice, Patience enjoying the façade of congeniality she would be forced to wear, and Alex nervous about how everything would play out.

Except Claire trained with Jody. Can see her strategy and think moves ahead of her. Being nice to an incompetent asshole would only make dumping the Yosemite hunt sting worse. Her only option then was to not play along. Straightening her spine, she strode in with a hastily assembled declaration.

“Hello Jody… Deputy Fuckface-”

Kaia’s eyes widened to match her stuffed cheeks, half-eaten burger hovering between her and the plate.

Claire froze. Time slowed around her, and Jody’s reprimand faded behind the harsh ringing shaking her ears. A weight lifted off her shoulders for the briefest of moments while she breathed. Only on the exhale something heavier crashed overhead. Cracking like an egg and dumping its yolk of emotions all over her. Feelings running wild Claire hadn’t let loose in years since… since…

“Kaia,” she breathes, “you’re… here?”

She swallows. Smiling nervously, she plates her unfinished meal. “Yeah… were you expecting Deputy Fuckface?”

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Claire says, aware of the tears stinging her eyes, “but I’m so glad it’s you.”

Kaia rushes to stand, chair scraping against the floor in her quest to gather Claire in her arms. Claire, unable to move, lets her. Even though it would be so easy to envelop the smaller girl like a clam does with a pearl. Instead Kaia treats her like she’s a treasure. Overwhelmed, Claire sobs into Kaia’s hair. “I thought you were dead,” she cries.

“I thought so, too,” Kaia tells her, “but my other self – she saved me.”

“Your other self?”

A throat clears from nearby, and Claire musters enough strength to lift her head up and see the regretful eyes of her mom. Jody crosses her arms, shifting. “There’s… a lot you don’t know about,” she admits, “About Kaia… about the Dark Figure…”

At the mention of Kaia’s attacker, Claire tenses. Only her walking dream drags her hands away from her head and to her shoulders, squeezing them. “It’s okay,” she whispers, “She didn’t… didn’t mean… and she’s gone now…”

“Gone?” Claire asks, “No… no she was just in Yosemite, wasn’t she?” Her own voice betrays any confidence, the doubt that her short stay in the desert was for naught creeping in.

Another touch joins Kaia’s, on her back. “C’mon Claire,” Donna says, “sit. Jody’s almost done making the next round of burgers for us.”

“We would’ve waited but Kaia was _starving_ ,” Patience chuckles.

Kaia rolls her eyes. “I’d like to see _you_ manage an all-gecko diet.”

“Gross,” Alex says, “How did you do that without imagining the little guy from the car commercials?”

“It got easier with each day.”

Jokes help her breathe. Ease the tension off her chest and free up space for air to fill. Tears stem and leave only tracks on her face that she wipes off with the sleeve of her jacket. “Kaia,” she says again, drawing the younger girl’s attention back to her, “I… I missed you so much.”

She nods, hugging Claire again. “Every day I was there,” Kaia starts, voice so low she doubts anyone but her can hear, “I thought of you. We only had a few hours together but… but you were my tether. Imagining you here, happy, living a life that I wasn’t able to. It made up for the fact that I wasn’t in it.”

“But you are. You get to be,” Claire sighs, kissing Kaia on her crown. Delighting in the fruity smell of the shampoo used throughout the house. A promise that Kaia is here to stay. To become part of their family like she was meant to. “And we can stretch those few hours into eternity.”

“Why don’t you stretch your butts to the table,” Jody says, flicking the stove off, “Burgers are done. Patience, Alex – help set the food on the table.”

They agree, knocking into the couple with affectionate shoulder bumps. Donna follows after them, adding further directions to Jody’s. Kaia pulls back, hand trailing down Claire’s arm until reaching the end and tangling their fingers together. “Come on,” she says, “the sooner we’re all seated the quicker I can tell you all about my time in the Other Place.”

“You mean the Bad Place?”

“It wasn’t bad, not in the end,” she says, guiding Claire to the table, “It just had a shitty hand dealt it. And I think everyone at this table knows a thing or two about that.”

“Do we ever,” Patience says, laying a tray of cooked patties in the center next to a plate of cheese slices.

Claire looks around the room, gaze lingering on a different person for a beat. Her heart warms as she finally begins trusting reality. That she won’t wake up to find herself bloody, up against her wheel with broken glass in her hair. Car smushed into the tree outside Jody’s house. With this sense of peace, the swirling void of darkness squatting in her mind disperses immediately.

“I’m all ears,” she says, reaching for a bun, “…but _after_ I’ve eaten.”

* * *

“The Dark Figure was really Kaia from another world… and I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

Castiel’s apologetic smile flashes at her, effect diminished by the blurry quality of his camera. “It was a group decision,” he says, “Knowing what you were going through… if you were to know that the Dark Figure shared Kaia’s appearance then –“

“Then nothing good would’ve happened,” Dean chimes in, smushed next to Castiel. It seemed impossible, for two grown men to share the screen evenly. Given their disregard for personal space however, they managed it well.

How it would look if others joined was not something she felt like imagining. Sam popped into frame once, stealing the laptop to mumble a quick hello. “In the middle of some research with Jack,” he said, “I asked if he wanted to come but said he’d rather your first meeting with him is n person given how you’re pseudo-siblings or something?”

“Is he?” Claire asked, glancing at Castiel, “Did you and his mother –“

“No,” Dean answered for him, “at least he _better_ not.”

“I didn’t,” Castiel assured, stealing his laptop back from Sam so they could continue their conversation. Kaia laughing into her shoulder all the while, enjoying the scene.

She was a constant presence at her side since dinner. While the rest of the house fled to different parts, they stayed in the kitchen for the longest time. Enjoying being with each other, even if there wasn’t anything left to talk about.

But there were still some words needed saying. So Claire texted Castiel with instructions to join her for a video call.

“I get it,” she says to them, “Really, I… thank you. Both of you. For once keeping secrets was the better option. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I found out about Kaia’s clone or whatever.”

“You probably would’ve come rescued me,” Kaia says, “after, like, a season’s worth of drama and angst – or whatever.”

“However,” Claire continues, pressing her finger to the screen. At the scant inch of space separating the two men pictured on it. “Like I told Jody, that better be the _last_ time you all conspire against me.”

Dean scoffs, “I make no such promises.”

“Asshole…” She turns to Castiel only to find his expression changed. Not by much, but the few differences were key in highlighting another emotion. The lines around his eyes faded and his eyebrows relaxed, allowing a quiet pride to reflect in a blue Claire sees often in her own reflection. “What’s on your mind, Cas?”

“I’m just… you’re so happy,” he tells her, “I know we don’t talk as much as I would like… and we’ve both been through so much, but… but I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become and that you’ve made it out of the darkness you were in.”

Warmth cascades around her from Castiel’s confession. She rubs a hand over her mouth, boring a hole into the keyboard. Unable to look up in fear she bursts into flame from all the fatherly affection Castiel directs at her from safe underground in the Bunker’s walls.

Kaia rustles from beside her, getting up. “I think I’m going to boot up Netflix,” she says, walking backwards to Claire’s bedroom door. “There’s so much I’ve missed out on… it’ll probably take me awhile to decide on what to watch first. Take your time here… Dean, Cas…” She slips out with a soft _click_.

“Claire…”

“Cas,” she sighs, finally meeting his gaze again, “I… I wouldn’t be where I am without you.”

“Now –“

“No,” she sternly interrupts, “no, I mean it. And not because of the whole ‘possessing my dad’ thing I mean… if you hadn’t searched for me – _cared_ enough about me to keep me safe and leave me with Jody I… I don’t know how I would’ve turned out. And being here I mean, you could’ve washed your hands of it all but you didn’t stop reaching out. It’s… what I’m trying to say is that having Kaia back is amazing, but it wouldn’t be _as_ amazing if I didn’t have you and everyone else here with me. _You_ make me happy, too.”

Castiel’s lips tremble, pool of tears collecting under his eyes. He tries to speak; except all he manages are a few shaky syllables.

Dean draws him closer with a loose arm thrown over his shoulders, knocking their heads together. “Thanks a lot Claire,” he sighs, “now I’m gonna be up with him all night!”

“Consider this punishment for leaving me out on the rescue Kaia mission.”

“It was for your own safety!”

“Not bringing the girl who saved your ass the _last_ time you were there?” she scoffs, “that’s dumb, even for you Winchesters.”

Dean growls another barbed comment at her, the good-natured cadence of his voice dulling the edges. “Anyway,” he says, “it’s going to be Hell trying to explain why he’s like this to the waiter…”

“Waiter?” Claire asks, “What waiter?”

“There’s this new place in town I wanted to try,” Dean tells her, “Since Jack and Sam are on God duty, I thought it’d be nice for a little date between me and Cas.” She doesn’t miss the slight hiccup when he used the ‘d’ word, or the tender blush on his cheeks. Like a schoolboy, he nervously bites on his lip and sneaks a peek at Castiel. “But if he’s going to be crying like this I doubt we’d get through appetizers before someone with a complex intervenes and reads me a riot act –“

“No, no, I’ll be fine,” Castiel sniffs, wiping at his tears, “I promise, I can have them under control –“

“Cas, it’s fine. We can just do a movie or something –“

“But we always do a movie. You wanted to try this and –“

“Gross,” Claire says, “Is this what love looks like when you’re older?” Twin splutters underscore her amusement. “Listen, Kaia’s probably found something to watch and I don’t want to hold you off on your date any further. Just… have fun. But not too much!” She ends the call before righteous indignance tarnishes her speakers.

Closing her own laptop, Claire hurries off to find Kaia. Like she guessed, the other girl sits watching the opening to a television show. Claire scoots next to her, tugging the blanket over her legs and laying her head on Kaia’s. “What’d you pick.”

“Show called ‘One Day at A Time’,” she says, “About a family with a single mom and a lesbian daughter. Looked interesting.”

“I heard about this. It’s supposed to be really good.”

“Great –“

“Too bad it got cancelled after it’s, like, third season.”

“…Why would you tell me _that_?”

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think? I would've gotten this out sooner but procrastination hits hard when you're sequestered in your house because of a pandemic.
> 
> I hope everyone out there is doing okay. Stay safe, drop kudos, and leave comments :)


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